“HUNDREDS FACE COMPULSORY AXE IN BRUM”

19-01-2010

Hundreds of Birmingham Council staff are facing compulsory redundancy according to opposition Labour leader Sir Albert Bore. He warned that staff morale is “rock bottom and has never been lower”.

Cllr Bore was making his comments after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, when Tony Howell, Strategic Director Young People, Children and Families, was expanding on reports that 1300 jobs were to be cut in his department.

Howell explained that Section 188 redundancy notices had been issued to staff as a formality because the structure of the department is being reviewed, and that it doesn’t automatically follow that all of them will lose their jobs. Some, for example, might be redeployed.

Bore commented: “When you add all the people who are at risk in the department to all the other people who are at risk elsewhere in the Council, I can’t see any way they’ll all be redeployed.

“I fear hundreds of people will lose their jobs. There’s no doubt in my mind that they are facing significant compulsory redundancies.”

He added that many staff still have unresolved Single Status issues, and were fighting the local authority through the courts to fend off pay cuts: “It’s no surprise that morale is at rock bottom.

“I warned Tony Howell that it has never been lower”.

Birmingham Council’s Cabinet Member for Human Resources Alan Rudge has so far failed to return our calls on the subject.

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